DA to review police actions in Herkimer Co. shooting spree

With an investigation bringing no answers to explain what triggered Kurt Myers’s deadly shooting spree in Herkimer County nearly four months ago, there’s one more important step that still needs to be done.

With an investigation bringing no answers to explain what triggered Kurt Myers’s deadly shooting spree in Herkimer County nearly four months ago, there’s one more important step that still needs to be done.

Once state police investigators finish all their reports summarizing what happened at each of the four crime scenes in the March 13 rampage, they will be turned over to the Herkimer County District Attorney’s Office, along with Myers’ autopsy report.

District Attorney Jeffrey Carpenter then will review all the documents related to shooting incidents and Myers’ ultimate death to determine if members of law enforcement did anything wrong during that 24-hour period, officials said.

After 64-year-old Myers started a fire at his South Washington Street apartment in Mohawk that morning, he shot four people inside a nearby barber shop – killing two – and then killed two more people several minutes later at Gaffey’s Fast Lube in Herkimer.

Myers spent the next 24 hours hiding in the abandoned Glory Days bar downtown, until he was killed in a barrage of return gunfire by a swarming tactical team. Myers had first shot a K-9 unit before the officers repeatedly shot him.

The U.S. Justice Department is awaiting word on Carpenter’s findings regarding their own federal agents who were present that day, including the FBI, U.S. marshals and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

“Ultimately, I have to decide whether or not I intend to prosecute anyone involved with this incident, and whether or not I will ultimately issue a declination of prosecution,” Carpenter said. “The federal government is obviously interested in whether or not I will prosecute any of their agents.”

Although the four separate reports soon to be completed by the state police Forensic Investigation Unit teams are not expected to reveal any surprises, state police Senior Investigator Timothy Blaise in Herkimer said these summations are still important to finalize everything that happened.

After drying up more than 400 investigative leads, Blaise said the only part of Myers’ mysterious life that police were able to discover was that he had less than $2 to his name and was thousands of dollars in debt.

“All we found were his financial problems, but I don’t know if that would lead somebody to do something like this,” Blaise said. “Nobody ever came forward to say they knew him, and nothing additional has come to light as far as his background. As far as why he did this in his mind, I don’t think we’ll ever know.”